


Does he know who you are?

by stchristopher



Category: Devilman
Genre: Angst, Canon Typical Violence, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Multiple Time Loops, also i was born to write asuka ryo being strangled. Spoiler alert., im finally writing devilman, just as God intended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 12:45:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11669391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stchristopher/pseuds/stchristopher
Summary: It doesn’t matter, Ryo Asuka thinks. It doesn’t matter if he bled a little or an oceans worth of blood. It will not make him any less dead.





	Does he know who you are?

  
  


*

  
  


            He holds him until the warmth leaves his body. The sun rises, casting fiery orange, red, purple, into the sea. The water is strangely still. Unnaturally, so. There are no waves. A breeze comes, pushes at a tuft of golden hair. 

            Despite the traumatic nature of his injury, Fudo Akira does not bleed much. It doesn’t matter, Ryo Asuka thinks. It doesn’t matter if he bled a little or an oceans worth of blood. It will not make him any less dead.

 

*

 

            They sit in his car and laugh. It’s that uncontrollable kind of laugh that is infectious. You slow down and think you’re done, then the other snickers and you’re losing it again. Ryo cannot remember the joke. Something about a boy from Akira’s classes. Ryo does not attend class with him; he is home-schooled by a tutor in his father’s mansion. But for the time he spends alone, he makes up for in this car with Akira, at the outskirts of town, the cities lights illuminated down below. The radio plays softly. The moon is hidden by clouds.

 

            Akira smokes, only because Ryo does. They are eighteen. It is one of those rich, pleasant timelines, where the horrors come late. Akira’s parents are alive, for now. He does not live with Makimura Miki, for now. Ryo’s father’s grip on sanity is tight enough, for now. Ryo’s identity is Ryo Asuka, for now. Ryo is happy.

For now.

 

            “So how’s Miki-chan?” Ryo asks it and he feels like a detective. Like a private investigator. Because he doesn’t _ actually _ care. He just needs to know. So he can feed the information to the bitter, jealous thing within himself that wants nothing but Akira, and only Akira, and all of Akira’s attention. He wishes, grimly, unhappily, that Makimura Miki, did not exist.

            Akira shrugs. He glances at his cigarette. He’s done less puffing and more watching the ember eat away at it until he puts it out in the ashtray Ryo has in place of cup holders.

 

            “She’s fine, I guess.” His cheeks are still red from laughter. His eyes, faintly wet. He sighs, pleasant. Ryo thinks _I guess,_ and is thankful for that off handed answer. He can’t tell if Akira is blushing at the mention of her name, or not. “There’s a festival coming to school soon.” He adds. 

 

            “Oh?” Ryo is more interested in smoking his own cigarette until it tastes worse than it already does. He asked but he regrets it now. If he could, he’d smoke the damn thing, filter and all, if maybe it would release the bitter tension that comes with  _ Makimura Mik- _

 

             “It’s a couples festival.” Akira finishes. Ryo tenses, if only for a second. It takes a conscious effort to push that bitter jealousy down. It feels more like rage.

 

             “Huh.” Is all he says. Cooly, calmly uninterested.

             

             “Yeah.” Says Akira. “I think Miki-chan wants me to take her. I don’t know. I’ve never done couple stuff like that. Sounds scary.”

 

             “Scary?”

 

             “Like… Intimidating. What if I mess up?”

 

            “Mess up how?” Ryo asks, arching a brow at him.  _ You could never mess up, _ he thinks, because he isn’t aware of the million of mistakes Fudo Akira will make, has made. Of course it is like Akira to become nervous at something as foolish as a  _ couples festival.  _ “All you have to do is walk around and-...”  _ Why are you giving him advice?  _ He thinks, and shuts his mouth. To make up from the sudden silence, he shrugs. “It’s easy.” He says instead, and Akira only gives him a half confused glance.

 

            “I don’t know.” Says Akira.

 

             “If you don’t want to go, then don’t.” Says Ryo. It is code for, _don’t go._ _At all._ “She’ll find someone else to take.” 

              That makes Akira chuckle, faintly. He smiles.

 

            “If I didn't know any better, I'd think you sounded like a jealous lover,” Says Akira, and it is so spot on that Ryo cannot speak. He turns, meets Akira’s eyes, as though his entire facade has been undone. It’s a mistake. Akira can tell, now, something is wrong. That playful grin falters, slightly. It notices. Ryo looks away, back out the window. A breeze pushes through the trees, and tugs at their hair. An awkward silence falls, and Akira’s stare lingers for a moment longer. Ryo says nothing. The radio plays on, soft, muffled, unheard.

            In this timeline, a beautiful thing has happened. It’s unintentional. A moment of vulnerability. Ryo does not mean to, involuntarily, subtly, tell him. 

            Akira Fudo knows he’s in love. Once again, it hadn’t been intentional. But it did not matter.

            Akira has never done much with a boy. He’s always watched girls, snuck glances at Miki in the classroom, blushed when she spoke to him. But those were just boyish things. Ryo Asuka is a long, long time friend. Ryo Asuka is-

 

            Akira responds to the confession- that accidental confession- with a kiss. A panicked, messy kiss, one he has to lean awkwardly forward, over the middle console and the ash tray, and Ryo turns asking, “ _ What is-” _ but the words are broken off. Fudo Akira tastes like cigarettes and his lips are faintly wet and a cool breeze pushes against them through the open car windows.

            When he pulls away, awkwardly hovering over the middle console, just before Ryo, the world stills like the ocean did, a century ago. The breeze fades. The trees tremble. The hollow space in Ryo Asuka’s chest stirs. And swells.

 

            “I-” Akira looks horrified, “Ryo-” He stares as though Ryo will explain it for him. His cheeks are somehow growing redder. “I-I-I don’t know what that was,” He laughs, three, forced breathy sounds, “S-sorry ah-ah-about tha-..that…” Ryo can do nothing but stare, wide eyed, back at him. He has never felt like this before. The swelling grows. 

 

            Ryo drops his cigarette carelessly. It tumbles just outside the window, where it’s ember burns against sand. Distantly, he thinks,  _ that’s how fires are started,  _ and then he is gripping Fudo Akira’s jaw. His cheeks are smooth; he has never been one to grow any sort of facial hair, despite his age. It makes him look younger. His breath is warm. The hollow space in Ryo Asuka’s chest swells again. He kisses Akira firmly.

 

            It is less awkward than Akira’s. It’s somehow calculated. It’s somehow still. He closes his eyes, perhaps because every time he’s kissed Akira it has been in some hazy dream, and he wakes up hard and ashamed and trying hard to push Akira’s doe-eyes from his mind. The other is tense until the kiss does not let up, and he sighs into it, kissing back, anxious, unsure, but still relaxing. He’s known Ryo for so long. Perhaps this was inevitable. 

The radio is playing something neither of them can hear. 

            Akira’s tongue is just as eager as his. Ryo revels in the fact that he tastes, faintly, familiar. 

 

            When Ryo Asuka pulls away, finally, it is Akira’s turn to stare, flabbergasted. Ryo can only stare back, lidded eyes, cheeks dusted red.

And then-

 

            “I’m sorry.” It’s weary sounding, and defeated. Akira’s chest is moving fast, because he had no idea how to breathe while kissing. 

 

            “D-don’t be,” Says Akira, because he isn’t sure what else to say. He means it, he knows, but he isn’t sure  _ why  _ he does .

 

            “But I am,” Says Ryo. “You should go with Miki to that festival-”

 

            “I-I’m not sure I  _ want _ to, Ryo…”

 

            “-do you want to go home now?” He asks, putting his hand on the keys still crammed into the ignition. He is withdrawing. Akira can tell. Pulling into himself, folding those emotions that burst, desperately, to get out, and hiding them away. He does this often, when things get too close. He’s shown too much. Somewhere, deep down, Satan is staring wide eyed, terrified, and is thinking.  _ “Start over. Oh my. Start over. That was bad. Start over. Oh my. Oh my. Oh no. Oh nononono. Start over. Start-” _

 

            Akira reaches out, quickly, to touch the back of Ryo’s hand. His fingertips are warm. Ryo freezes.

 

            “No, I don’t want to go home, either, Ryo…” He says, slowly.

 

            “Why not?” Asks Ryo. He isn’t sure what he is asking _why not_ to. Akira isn’t asking to leave. Why not? Akira isn’t angry with him. Why not? Akira is not glaring, isn’t asking him _why,_ isn’t snapping that he likes Miki, not a _boy._ _Why not?_ Thinks Ryo Asuka. _Why not, Akira?_

 

            “Because-” Says Akira. He searches his mind for something he isn’t sure of. It isn't a terrified sort of unsure. It is eager. It wants. _He_ wants... 

He wants to comfort, but he isn’t even sure what it was that was making his cheeks so red. What it was that made the lower half of his stomach burn with something that might have been desire. “Because. I want to stay. Here. With you.” He says. For Fudo Akira, it is the most confident thing he’s said in a while.

 

            The rest of the time within the car is spent in silence that isn’t quite awkward, with Ryo’s occasional, slow explanations.  _ “I have liked you for a while,”  _ and  _ “You do not have to return these feelings, of course not,”  _ and  _ “You decide what you want,” _ . Akira mostly only nods. And then, when it’s feels a bit too late, and Akira knows his parents will worry soon, he says, “Want to do this again tomorrow?” And his smile is more reassuring than anything either of them could have said. Ryo nods.

            "I," He says, "Would love to."

 

*

  
  


            They are twenty when Ryo first tells him he loves him. Granted, he has felt that way since a month after they met. They have been dating nearly two years, starting a day after Akira’s first kiss. But that was too early, then. 

            He says it between bed sheets, beneath Akira, another unintentional confession. Despite their nakedness, Ryo feels horrifyingly vulnerable almost instantly. It makes Akira stop his eager movements and blink down at him. Then he laughs. Oh, that laugh… It’s breathy and song-like and his cheeks are dusted red, and he reaches, and he cups Ryo’s cheek, and as sweetly, as casually as though they were talking over dinner, he says, “I love you, too!” 

 

*

  
  


            This timeline ends as abruptly as it becomes perfect. The plan falls into effect as it always does, and it is over, Ryo’s memories spilling into him, when it is too late. 

 

            Fudo Akira defeats Amon because he has to  _know_  why _._ _W_ _hy_ all of this happened. Why he's been betrayed so... So viciously. So cruelly. It was all so perfect... 

            When he drags his mostly ruined body, torn, broken, injured from his battle with the red devil, he is crying. Loudly. Makimura Miki, only a close friend this time, is dead. Her little brother, is dead. Her parents, are dead. Akira's parents, are dead. Ryo’s father is dead. Everyone is dead. Ryo Asuka hovers over the rubble and thinks,  _ why is it always so loud?  _

 

            “Why?” Akira’s voice is raw, with anger, with grief, when he reaches Ryo. They are twenty-four now, men grown, mostly. The burdens they carry are not any less heavy, however, than they are when they are teenagers. “Why, Ryo? Why?  _ Please. _ Tell me,  _ why? _ ”

 

            It is all he can ask. Ryo does not have an answer. _ Because I love you.  _ He does not say it.

 

_             “Why? _ ” Akira begs. 

 

_             I don’t know.  _ Thinks Ryo. It’s the truth. Had the demons never come, had his memories never flooded him, the future would have been different. Now the sky is red, from fire. It’s black, from smoke. It smells like burning flesh and the acrid taste of blood. Somewhere, in the back of Ryo’s mind, he recalls something. The memory is faint. He reaches and tries to grasp it. He recalls a ring. He recalls- he recalls…

           What was that they had planned to do together? Akira had planned it all, and Ryo had listened pleasantly. What did the humans call it, that ritual that bound two individuals together, to become one? A ritual spurred by love, unending, unfathomable? 

 

           Satan cannot remember.  _Because I love you._ Still, he does not say it.

 

            Fudo Akira fights him with everything he has left within him. It's not much. It isn’t even Ryo that kills him this time. He bleeds out, stumbling to the side mid-run. Gasping. Ryo watches him fall, unbelieving. 

            He dies before Ryo can reach him, weeping.

  
  


*

  
  


            It is the silence that is the most painful. It cuts him deeper than any claw ever has. It is crueler than perhaps even himself. Fudo Akira glares at him from across the rubble. He is tall, a man. Grown. He is as handsome as Ryo would imagine. His eyes are dark. His lips are set into a straight, emotionless line. It is somehow worse, in these timelines where he fell for Makimura Miki, these timelines where what-could-have-been never was. Ryo Asuka (Satan) stares back. Like an angel, he’s dressed in white. 

            Ryo waits. He isn’t sure what for.

 

            Akira steps forward.

 

            Akira steps past him as passively as he might a stranger.

 

           Silence is worse than any crying, than any begging, than any heart torn  _ why? _ Silence is more truthful. In silence, nothing is left out. In silence, nothing is left unsaid. Words can be contorted, twisted to mean something else, if only to console one’s own consciousness. In silence, there is nothing to twist. 

 

            In the distance, another explosion sets off, and Akira’s shadow grows longer, longer, thinner, thinner, until he is gone.

  
  


*

 

            Sometimes, Ryo Asuka comes to live with Akira. It’s rare; his mother is long dead and his father commits untimely suicide. Ryo is mature enough to maintain his father's grounds and live alone, but the social workers disagree. He is only seventeen. Akira’s parents were close friends with his father. They take him in, piteously. He shares a room with Akira. They spend the nights, talking in the space that separates their beds. Ryo does not attend school with him. He doesn’t like the other students. He’s never been very social.

 

            “How was school?” Ryo asks him.

 

            “I… It was fine...”

 

            “What are you hiding?”

 

            “I… Nothing, Ryo-”

 

            “Don’t lie.” He says it playfully. Akira laughs, anxious. Ryo does not. 

 

            “... Do you remember Miki? Well, she...”

 

            … Sometimes it’s the confession of Makimura Miki that brings Satan to the forefront of his mind. It’s that bitter, sad feeling that Akira does not reel at the thought of him as he does at the thought of Akira. It comes burning, and it presses a finger to Ryo’s lips urging him to keep quiet. He hates those timelines. Perhaps not the most. But it is devastating as always, knowing so much. So very much. He spends the rest of the timeline, when it is peaceful, waiting. Withdrawn. Akira becomes Devilman. Amon shows himself. Akira cannot defeat Amon. Ryo cannot even revel in Miki’s death any longer. It tears Akira in two, and it is like watching himself, holding Akira’s severed, ruined body. It hurts. 

 

            It hurts.

 

*

 

            There are those rare timelines when Akira  _ kills _ Ryo. Ryo is unsure what he makes of them. It happens when Psycho Jenny cannot stop it. It happens because Akira is stronger than Amon. It happens because Ryo’s guard is down. It happens because Akira tells him, “ _ I hate you.”  _

            It isn’t like he hasn’t heard that one before. It’s just, it’s not easy to hear. It’s  _ never _ easy to hear. And sometimes, it hits harder than others. Ryo realizes it’s over when Akira is advancing, rapidly. Akira does not use his fists. He doesn’t beat him with that incredible strength of his. He does not tear his wings away as he did to Sirene. 

            He uses his hands.

 

            His grip crushes the divine bones in Ryo’s neck to dust. He snaps his windpipe so that he cannot speak but only squeak, make tiny, pitiful gasping sounds and then nothing at all. It’s funny that lack of breath can kill him. But he knows, distantly, he’ll wake up in Ryo Asuka’s body as soon as he closes his eyes. It is hardly over.

           Ryo has heard that when you die, or when you are dying, you see your life flash before your eyes. Ryo sees nothing but Akira, over him, eyes burning with what-? Rage? Grief? 

 

           Ryo has heard that strangulation is considered the most passionate way to die. It’s close. It’s loving. He cannot agree more.

**Author's Note:**

> i really really enjoyed writing these two! I think I'll definitely write them again soon................................. it'll hopefully be nsfw. this fic was semi-inspired by the song "You don't know how luck you are" by Keaton Henson. All of his songs are angsty. Pls listen
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> also ryo is a bottom


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